Don’t Riff On the Ribbon – Chapter 7, Prologue 30

That’s actually a question that has always bothered me – old maps still displayed those ribbons of paper with the names of localities on them, but on modern maps they’re gone. What happened to those ribbons? Judging by the maps, those things were HUGE. For a medieval society, it must have been quite an effort to create and erect them, so why did they suddenly decide to get rid of them?

Especially since they seem to have been quite useful, anyway. Modern maps have the names of localities directly on the ground, that must leave a lot of valuable real estate covered in ink in real life. By having the paper ribbon in between, you don’t lose all of that area beneath it, and it’s nice and shady to boot…

Well, anyway, Si’ri and K’ip aren’t traversing the real world after all, but a fantasy one, so here the ribbons are still around and in good repair. They seem a bit surprised by their presence, but that’s probably just because the ribbons marking places in the Evergreen Forest were above the canopy and thus invisible from the ground. *nodnod*